2013MNRAS.435L..73R -
Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 435, L73-L77 (2013/October-2)
An O2If* star found in isolation in the backyard of NGC 3603.
ROMAN-LOPES A.
Abstract (from CDS):
In this Letter, we communicate the identification of a new Galactic O2If* star (MTT 68) isolated at a projected linear distance of 3pc from the centre of the starburst cluster NGC 3603. From its optical photometry, I computed a bolometric luminosity MBol = -10.7, which corresponds to a total stellar luminosity of 1.5x106 L☉. It was found to be an interesting similarity between MTT 68 and the well-known multiple system HD 93129. From Hubble Space Telescope (HST) F656N images of the NGC 3603 field, it was found that MTT 68 is actually a visual binary system with an angular separation of 0.38arcsec, which corresponds to a projected (minimum) linear distance of rA-B = 1.4x10–2pc. This value is similar to that for the HD 93129A (O2If*) and HD 93129B (O3.5) pair, rA-B = 3.0x10–2pc. On the other hand, HD 93129A has a third closer companion named HD 93129Ab (O3.5) at only 0.053arcsec, and taking into account that the X-ray to total stellar luminosity ratio for the MTT 68 system (LX/LBol ∼ 1x10–5) is about two orders of magnitude above the canonical value expected for single stars, I suspect that the MTT 68 system probably hosts another massive companion possibly to close to be properly resolved by the HST archive images.
Abstract Copyright:
© 2013 The Author Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society (2013)
Journal keyword(s):
stars: individual: HD 93129A - stars: individual: MTT 68 - stars: Wolf-Rayet - open clusters and associations: individual: NGC 3603
Simbad objects:
11
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